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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Dealing With Comics On The Go

Happy December. I'd have been happier if the afternoons here were not so hot and humid and behaved more winter-like instead (or at least autumn-like), considering it's already the start of the winter season, but that's a pipe dream here in the damned tropics. The evening and nights are pleasantly cooling though, so it's hell for on-the-road day-jobbers like me and bliss for the night-shift folks.

Have you ever stored comics that come in jpeg (or jpg) format onto your mobile and see them all get displayed when you open up your phone's photo gallery? If you are like me and think that comic strips shouldn't have a place alongside your photos in your photo gallery which auto scans for every picture file residing in your phone, you should be able to identify with me regarding the messiness of it all.

Zip 'em up & rename 'em

The solution for me comes in the form of this app called Androzip. Just browse to the folders containing those comic jpeg files using Androzip, zip them up, rename the file extensions of the zipped files to cbr, delete the original folders containing the jpeg files and your photo gallery will no longer display those comic jpegs anymore - only your comic reader app will be able to view them, which is the objective here.

As an example, say you've got a folder labelled 'Chapter 001' that contains the jpeg files of chapter 1 within the comic's root folder. Zip up that 'Chapter 001' folder with Androzip and a folder named 'Chapter 001.zip' is produced. So far so good? Ok, then rename 'Chapter 001.zip' to 'Chapter 001.cbr' (minus the quotes). Finally, delete that pre-zipped 'Chapter 001' folder, you won't need it anymore.

Just repeat the same process for the rest of the folders containing the comic's jpeg files and you're done.

File renaming with Androzip

Note that every step mentioned above are all done within Androzip itself, since this handy app has renaming and file deletion capabilities. Nifty. Oh, it handles RAR files too, which is another very common file compression format. No, you don't have to root your Droid nor computer access for this.

Sure, you can get lazy and just let your photo gallery go to unkempt hell with comic files, screenshots and photos taken with the camera get all over the place all mish-mashed together. If so, good luck hunting down that photo you need if your comics, graphic novels and manga contain lots of chapters. So it's best to keep everything neat and organized within their own proper places in your phone instead, yes? You only need to do the Androzip process mentioned above just once for every comic anyway, unless the comic already comes in cbr or cbz format.

I know, you could filter your photo gallery by albums but then again, each chapter of every comic will also be displayed as an album if their contents are in jpeg format. So if your comics contain lots and lots of chapters, it's back to messy photo gallery hell. So save yourself the eyesore.

In case you would like to know which comic reader is good, I recommend Perfect Viewer, which is what I've been happily using all along. I recommend this app not just because it can read cbr and cbz files, but also because it allows any folder you select within your external SD card as its bookshelf (example: a no-brainer folder labelled 'Comics' where you keep all your comic collection), which is something I can't say for lots of other apps.

I classify comics as multimedia and multimedia files ought to be stored in external SD cards if you happen to use one in your phone, instead of being stored in the phone's internal memory. All you need is a good class of SD card (I use a SanDisk Class 10 card) and you are good to go.